Frontloading HQ here explains the Republican delegate rules in New Hampshire. Even though preliminary election returns show that Donald Trump only has about 34% of the popular vote, because he is the winner, he will get all the unallocated delegates. The vote for candidates who poll less than 10% goes into the Trump column.
On February 8, the South Dakota State Senate defeated SB 95 by 24-8. This is the bill that would have let candidates in primaries, and also independent candidates, use filing fees instead of petitions. The bill only applied to Congress and state office.
On February 9, the U.S. District Court in North Carolina that had struck down the state’s U.S. House districts last week refused to stay its own opinion. The state is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay. See this story. UPDATE: here is the state’s request to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for a stay. Thanks to Rick Hasen for that.
On February 9, a Connecticut state trial court heard arguments in Morris v Giesing, which challenges a state law that says no one can circulate a petition for a candidate to get on a primary ballot unless the circulator has been a member of the same party as the candidate for at least three months. The candidate, a Democrat, circulated his own petition, but all the signatures he collected were invalidated because he has only been a Democrat since December 2015. See this story. A decision is expected by Friday, February 12. The Defendant argued that there would be “chaos” if anyone could circulate a petition.
On February 9, California Assemblymember Rocky Chavez, a Republican, dropped out of the U.S. Senate race. See this report. This is probably because California’s top-two system injures major parties that have multiple candidates in the primary. With only two well-known Democrats running, and three or four Republicans in the same race, the top-two system would probably result in only two Democrats on the general election ballot. The two Democrats would place first and second, shutting out all the Republicans.
There are still three Republicans running, despite the withdrawal of Chavez: Duf Sundheim, Tom Del Beccaro, and Al Ramirez.
